


Waiting for Slow Songs

by vtn



Category: Canadian Music RPF, Matthew Good Band
Genre: Coming Out, M/M, Woke Up Gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 17:14:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/612254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtn/pseuds/vtn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day that Dave Genn woke up gay goes more or less like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting for Slow Songs

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://wtf27.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://wtf27.livejournal.com/)**wtf27** prompt #16 - _You see, I[woke up gay](http://www.dymphna.net/wakeupgay/)_ (linked because apparently this is a thing). Title is from [Sloan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIDBu8BEADU).
> 
> THERE, I FIXED IT! This story, as I wrote it in 2007, had an ending I was not particularly comfortable with, and some other silly things I needed to edit (there's one scene where Dave was simultaneously playing the piano and guitar. He was not meant to be) so I have rewritten the ending, 86ed Dave's extra pair of hands, and tweaked various parts. I'm much happier with it now, but if you'd like to read the old version, it can be found [here](http://vtn.lir.cc/slowsongs.html).

The day that Dave Genn woke up gay goes more or less like this:

Dave opens his eyes, and he's surrounded by chests. It's just—chests. They are around. They have muscles on them, and they have nipples. He's never really noticed it before, but now the prevalence of chests seems fairly obvious and he wonders how he could have missed it.

For instance, there's Matt. Matt is asleep in the twin bed next to Dave's, drooling on a formerly-crisp corner of the hotel-issue bed sheet. And Matt has a chest. He does. Dave is sure of this. He can't see it right now but he's seen it before. It sits below Matt's neck and above his stomach, and it is quite chesty. Being, as it is, a chest.

Shaving in front of the mirror, Dave notices that he, too, has a chest, but that this is much less interesting than the prospect of Matt having one. He nicks himself and, swearing under his breath, decides to try to turn his mind away from chests. But then he starts thinking about legs and he'll be damned if he isn't surrounded by those too, and—

"Hey, you two, where's the Pepto-Bismol? I think that tandoori chicken didn't agree with me or something, because I think Rich is going to kick me out of the room if I don't—"

"Ian!" Matt shouts from the bed. "I was actually really enjoying being asleep just now." Ian drops his hands sheepishly from where they've been clutching Dave and Matt's doorframe, and heads fully into the room as the door clicks behind him. "No, I mean really. I had one of those dreams where I was flying, and then I was about to go get an ice cream sandwich. I'll have to kill you now."

"You might need to get out of bed first," Ian reasons. Matt sighs.

"And I really can't be bothered, to tell the truth." He rolls over, clutching his pillow, and shuts his eyes. "Sleeping now," he says, as if to affirm that he's not just lying down with eyes closed in a bed for a lark. 

"Good morning, Dave," Ian says, looking over at Dave and noticing, presumably, that half of his face is still covered with shaving cream, and part of it is bleeding. "Is there a reason you're giving me the silent treatment?"

Dave shakes his head to snap himself out of his zoned-out state.

"Uh, no. I'm just kind of disoriented this morning. Must have had a weird dream or something last night." He runs a hand through his hair and takes note that he has slept in his hair gel, again. He also notes that this doesn't really bother him, and smiles, relieved. He has not been body-snatched and replaced with a flamer. It's just that he keeps thinking about how Ian would look nice with his shirt off, and he never really noticed how attractive the way his hair falls in his eyes when he's just woken up is.

"Well, I'll personally blame Indian food, since that's the reason for my flatulence. Now, on that topic, where _is_ the Pepto-Bismol?"

"We really needed to know that!" Matt shouts encouragingly from the bed. "I can't wait to tune into next week's episode of Ian Browne's bodily functions!"

"Yeah well, that's what she said," Ian retorts, turning back to Dave. "I think maybe I'll kill him instead of the other way around."

"Hey, make love, not war," Dave says, glancing back into the mirror before continuing shaving. And then he nicks himself again, because he's getting an image of Ian bending Matt over the hotel bed, and it's putting a jump in the pit of his stomach. "Fuck," he says softly.

"Dave, I think you should go back to bed. You're bleeding all over the place."

"Well, yeah, there go my hopes of having a presentable face. Hopefully I'm loved for my excellent personality."

Ian plays with the hem of his shirt. "This would be a great time to make a nasty comment, except there's really nothing bad I can say about your personality."

"Stop hitting on Dave. Anyway, I used all the Pepto-Bismol," Matt snaps. "Sorry." Ian glares at him. "Come on, I'm sure there's a convenience store near here. Or am I just not allowed to have stomach problems anymore?"

"Obviously, only I am," Ian says, faking a pout. "You cut me deep, Matt. You cut me deep."

"Please go away!" Matt pulls the covers over his head forcefully. Dave looks away and dabs thoughtfully at his bleeding face with his shirt. Ian wouldn't really hit on him, would he? That comment was unusually complimentary, but _Ian_ —not Ian. There's no way. Ian's been dating the same girl for two years, if Dave remembers right. 

Dave heads into the bathroom to further clean up, and maybe his muddled head, too, if he can help it. He splashes water over his face. This is—he's _not_ , okay? He likes women. He likes breasts and he likes curves, not all this man-chesty-stuff. He likes having sex with women, although he isn't really sure he understands why so many other people do. Wait. Where did that thought come from?

Before he starts letting this whole thing snowball, because he knows thanks to Matt what happens when you let things snowball too far, he turns on the shower and strips. Maybe in a few hours, this will all be cleared up. There's no reason for him to worry.

\---

Laughing and kicking, Matt and Holly McNarland tumble onto the floor of Holly's dressing room, in the sort of burst of energy Dave hasn't seen from Matt in who knows how long. Probably at least not since a month before he broke up with his last girlfriend. Holly and Matt seem to have a thing going—Dave is fairly sure they fucked on the floor after filming the video for "Alabama Motel Room", although he wasn't there himself so he can't verify this—and for some reason it kind of annoys him that this is the only thing Matt gets happy about. 

Still, he'd be glad to see Matt get out of the slump he's been in lately, and having someone with Holly's eternal optimism around would do him good. Part of him is feeling a twinge of jealousy, though—he misses having a steady girlfriend and, especially, the rush of falling in love. There's nothing else like it.

"Well?" Holly says, as she puts Matt into a chokehold. "Are you going to stay around and watch?"

"Sorry." Dave drops his hands from where they've been stuffed in his pockets. "I've been so out of it today. I think the only part of my brain that's functioning is the 'sit around and gape' center."

"I'll concede we're better than what's on TV these days," Matt says, grinning while he tries to extract himself from Holly's arms. Once he succeeds, he pins her down prone underneath him.

"Uncle!" Holly shouts, beating the floor. "Damn it Matt, I could kick your ass if I hadn't gotten all of four hours of sleep last night."

"Sleep." Matt nuzzles close to Holly's face, collapsing. "I like sleep."

Dave isn't sure whether it's his conscience or their tenderness that makes him leave then; both of them hurt.

\---

Midnight approaches faster than usual, and Dave has been playing guitar alone, sitting on the tailgate of the MGB's van. Holly's band is having a spontaneous midnight barbecue, and Dave is considering furtively snatching a burger when Holly walks up to the van, skinny arms folded over her chest.

"What is it with you, Dave Genn?" she asks, in a tone that is some sort of bizarre middle ground between condescending and comforting.

"I don't even know." He plays a quick scale in Mixolydian mode and frowns. "You don't need to do this." Holly laughs.

"I should have known. Matt keeps telling me you're a nice guy. Girl in a tank top and no bra walks up to you and you turn her away." Clicking her tongue, she shakes her head. Dave, for the record, didn't even notice she wasn't wearing a bra. He doesn't notice that sort of thing. Does he notice that sort of thing? Did he _use_ to notice that sort of thing?

"Well, sure, if she appears to have some sort of relationship thing with one of your best friends," Dave says, setting his guitar down. "Besides, 'What is it with you?' sounds more like you're annoyed with me than anything else."

Holly whistles. "Oh boy, and he really _is_ nice. I swear, guys like you are one in a million."

Dave can't help but raise an eyebrow at this. "And Matt isn't?"

"Matt's one of a kind."

"I can't say I disagree with that."

A flicker of light from the grill passes over Holly's face. She sits down on the tailgate next to Dave, pushing up with her arms and scrabbling when her feet don't quite touch the grass. Something about how loud and confident she is makes him keep forgetting she's even smaller than he is.

"What is it you and Matt have, anyway?" Dave speaks up after a minute or so, figuring two can play this game.

"Friends with benefits, I guess." She grins. "We could never go out; my cats don't like him." Dave can't help but laugh at the image of Holly's cats hissing at Matt's sullen mug. 

"Matt's a dog guy. That must be pretty irreconcilable," he says.

"You bet." Holly wiggles her toes above the grass. "So. What is it? You looked like you needed a girl to talk to. Guys are never, _ever_ good for talking about serious stuff with. Sometimes not even if you're dating them. They always get awkward and start going on about the weather."

Dave grits his teeth a little. "It's nice out, isn't it?"

Holly shifts. One of her spaghetti straps slides down her shoulder. "Come _on_. I'm offering you help. Or at least a sounding board. No one who's completely all right stands around looking like he needs directions when his friend is half-naked on the floor with a girl—"

"You weren't half-naked."

Holly looks like's trying to remember whether she was naked or clothed at the time, but then snaps out of it. "My point still stands. I'm being nice." 

They sit in silence, staring at their increasingly drunken bandmates as they skewer hot dogs. Then Dave talks, and it all just comes out in a rush.

"See, the thing is, I'm not sure if I could use the kind of help you're offering, because I think I might be gay."

He feels his face flush and his heart pound, as his thoughts scramble for coherence.

"Oh," Holly says. "Wow." She puts a hand on Dave's arm. "That's big. How long have you been thinking about this?"

"Since this morning." His blood is pounding in his ears so loud that his voice sounds like it's coming from outside of him somewhere. "Well, in coherent terms, since this morning. But I think there was always something—I was never able to put it into words, but there was a reason I didn't stay in relationships long, and I was always more interested in guitars than porn, but I thought I was just _dedicated_ —"

"Well, I'm sure you are. You're sitting here playing on the back of a truck in a field while your friends are all getting drunk around a grill, so I don't know how much more dedicated someone can get. But seriously. This is big. You deserve so much more credit than anyone's giving you just for trying to act normal."

"I woke up this morning and things just started to fall into place," Dave continues, numbly. "Maybe I had a dream last night—something raunchy, probably, and then I just woke up and I was thinking about naked guys. And now that I'm admitting it to myself, I'm realizing it makes more sense than anything else ever has." His head droops and he braces it with a hand. "God, I thought I was just _nice_."

"Oh, come on. Nice and gay don't have anything to do with each other. You do sort of have double jeopardy with the whole gay _and_ Canadian thing, though." Dave manages a laugh. "You know, you shouldn't worry about Matt and Ian and Rich finding out or whatever, if that's what you're worried about."

"Yeah, a little." He's dug himself into a hole here, but this keeps getting continually more embarrassing. "That, and—what do I _do_ now? I don't want to suddenly start chasing after random guys, I just don't know where to go from here. I'm sitting on the back of a truck talking to the girl my best friend sleeps with and not thinking about consequences, but tomorrow morning I'll wake up and everything will hit me like a hangover."

"You come to peace with yourself, is what you do. This is the first step."

"Do you know anyone else who's gay?" is the first thing that comes to mind.

"Sure! Plenty. If you mean dateable material, I could give you a list."

"I meant it as in, have you ever had this conversation before?"

"Oh." She laughs. "I've been on _both_ sides of this conversation. I'm bisexual. I guess somehow I just figure people will know this without asking."

"You don't look like it," Dave says.

"Oh, fuck stereotypes. Plenty of people 'don't look like it'. You don't look like anything but yourself; I wouldn't like, see you and think, oh, that guy there, he loves the cock. I just meant I assume people know because it's just as much a part of me as having brown hair. Or even more a part of me, since I dyed my hair after all."

"What do you think Matt would say if I told him?"

"I'm not a mind reader, but I'm pretty damn sure he would just give it a second to fall into his worldview and then smile and pat you on the back."

"But Matt freaks out about things. I don't know if you've seen him."

"Oh, I've seen him freak out about things. But he won't freak out about that. From what I know of him, he only freaks out about things that actually matter."

Dave looks up at her and grins. "Holly, I don't know you well, and I sure as hell don't understand why you're doing this, but you're a damn good person."

"If you think that, you obviously haven't seen me drunk." 

Holly puts her arms loosely around Dave, and Dave somehow finds himself slipping down until his head is in her lap and she's stroking his hair. It makes him damn thankful, not only because she's there, but also because it doesn't mean anything more than it means on the surface. But mostly because she's there.

\---

Matt has a glow the next morning, because he's obviously been getting laid. He's the only one—everyone else is hung over, and Rich is doubled over puking behind the van. But Matt is glowing and laughing, and a barefoot Holly is clinging to him, tucking his hair behind his ears where it's getting long and biting his arm to make him laugh. 

With friends like this, Dave finds himself wondering, who needs lovers? Holly's even making breakfast for the MGB, frying eggs over the tiny stove in the room where her band is staying. 

"I can't tell you how nice it is we could meet up," Rich says as he stumbles back in. Holly tosses him a bottle of Advil across the counter. 

"Take a breath mint too, if you can find one," she calls cheerily and flips another egg out of her pan and onto a plate. Dave takes it from her, smiling, and digs into it with a fork, hungrier than he thought he'd be. Holly winks and punches him in the arm, whatever that's supposed to mean. Somehow he decides to interpret it as 'talk to Matt', so he eats slowly after that and waits till everyone else is finished to get seconds, then camps out on the couch with his cleaned plate on his lap.

Matt, as usual, is not particularly perceptive, so it takes a playful shove from Holly and an "I'll be back. You two have fun," before he figures out there's something he's supposed to say to Dave. 

"Okay," Matt says, hands on his hips and looking down curiously at Dave. "Am I here to apologize for something I don't know I fucked up yet?"

"No," says Dave, smiling despite himself and the fact that he's terrified. "I want to apologize for being…whatever I was being yesterday."

"Whatever." Matt stuffs his hands in his pocket and crouches, leaving his face uncomfortably close to Dave's. Dave wonders: what if he just grabbed Matt and kissed him like nobody's business? Would he like that? Could he—

And everything sort of happens at once then.

"I think I'm gay," says Dave, and at the same time Matt is saying "I'm attracted to you."

"No, wait," Matt continues. "That sounds retarded. I have feelings for you. No, that's worse. I want to—wait, _what_ did you just say?"

"What did _you_ just say, is the better question," Dave protests. "I mean, are you fucking serious?"

"Would I sound this nervous if I wasn't fucking serious?" Matt says shakily, stuffing his hands further into his pants. "I was talking to Holly and she told me I should tell you, I don't know why—"

What is this girl's deal?

"Because I told her last night that I think I'm gay," Dave interrupts, a bit crossly.

"No." Matt gives Dave a sad smile. "She said it right about after you left the room. I guess that was just a coincidence." He runs a hand through his hair and then puts it back in his pocket. "Um, I guess that's pretty cool. About you. Uh, thanks. For trusting me enough. I would love to say it makes this easier, but obviously it doesn't. And this is probably really awkward for you. Maybe I should have told you back when we were just getting started with this whole band thing. Maybe I shouldn't have told you at all."

"No, no, it's fine." Dave shakes his head. "Thank _you_ for trusting _me_. You're a good guy. If this hasn't come between us in—god, three fucking _years_ , I can't see how it will magically start to now. You're a good friend. Great musician. And…." Dave cuts himself off.

"And?"

"And you're not bad looking, either."

"You're just saying that to make me feel better."

"I am not."

"Then we should sleep together," says Matt, his voice growing uncomfortably loud. Dave can tell he's ridiculously nervous, but that doesn't make it any less annoying that there are probably people in Africa who can hear him.

"No, I can't. I haven't—I've never even _been_ with a guy before. It's not like they send you an instruction manual in the mail the day you come out." Dave rubs the back of his neck. That really is the only thing stopping him, he thinks. At least, even if sex with girls was really weird when you thought about it, you didn't really need help figuring out how to do it. If Matt were only female, Dave could just grab him by the shirt collar and strip him and fuck him on the floor. But, he thinks wryly, he wouldn't _enjoy_ it, if Matt were female.

"Oh, that's all?" Matt looks actually _cocky_ for a second. "It's not as hard as it looks." Dave opens his mouth. "And before you ask and embarrass yourself, yes, I have done it before. Plenty."

Great. Matt the fuck-up gets around more than he does. The whole thing with Holly has made him aware of this, but this is just rubbing it in.

"I still don't think I'm ready for that yet," Dave admits. "I mean, I just finally put the pieces together with myself." And more of the pieces keep falling into place. More things Dave remembers that had been feeling like they belonged to someone else. "I used to think about it all the time when I was younger, but I sort of pushed it back so I could deal with all the things people were expecting me to do."

"Can I tell you something, Dave?" says Matt, whose hands are now visibly shaking. "All my life has been the same way—all the stupid things I didn't tell anyone? Well, I started telling people. It hasn’t made them any better, but it's done loads for my guilty conscience."

The first thing Dave thinks to ask Matt is what other "stupid things" is he not telling Dave about, but he thinks better of it. Instead he says, "You should sit down," and moves over to accommodate Matt on the couch.

"Great," says Matt. "Now this has just gotten about a hundred times more awk—"

Dave grabs Matt and gives him that kiss he was thinking about earlier, his hand on the back of Matt's head and his eyes squeezed shut. Matt squirms against him for a moment but then kisses back, and Dave can't help but think, after the strangeness of the whole thing starts to fade, that Matt is really rather good at it.

\---

Holly opens the MGB show that night, and both Dave and Matt stay in the audience to watch. Matt seems to use every opportunity he can to touch Dave somehow, knocking against him constantly and linking their fingers when no one else can see. Dave is on edge, figuring out lame excuses to leave for the washroom or push away from Matt in the crowd. 

It's going to be very hard to explain, Dave realizes, that the kiss in Holly's band's room wasn't exactly Dave's way of saying okay, let's have a relationship. It was sort of Dave's way of saying—when he thinks about why he did it—of saying you're cute, and you're even cuter when you aren't embarrassing both of us. When you have your mouth shut. There is a great divide between Dave figuring out he's gay and Dave deciding he's going to start having a gay relationship with someone he never even entertained the concept of being more than friends with. Everything in his head is just a mess right now, making him do things he regrets. Matt doesn't deserve this from him. Matt needs him to just be honest. But how can he do that when he's not even sure if he's being honest with himself?

When the MGB goes onstage, Dave gets a sinking feeling that everything is headed toward an explosion.

"I really don't feel like talking tonight," Matt mumbles into the microphone, his eyes dark, "So we're going to shut up and play. Buy our single."

So Dave concentrates much harder than usual on his solos and he fucking nails Hello Time Bomb. 

It gets good after that. Really good. Just before they're about to finish up there's a sort of huddle on the stage and they decide to play Change of Season, which isn't much of a live song, but Matt insists that it's as good a song as anything else and should get the credit it deserves. Dave is on board, since it's his song as much as it is Matt's, and Ian and Rich are agreeable since it's basically a break for them. 

"Get your lighters out, everyone," Ian mutters, before Rich smacks him upside the head. Good. About time Rich started finding his feet in the band. They disperse to their stations and Dave takes the keyboard while Matt strums distractedly at a guitar to warm up. Then they stumble (stumble, Dave thinks, is the right word, because Dave played 75% of the parts in the studio) into the intro.

"If they dropped the bomb, would you love me then? If I was wrong, would it be okay?" Matt sings, and then Dave feels his stomach drop to his feet and he almost misses his cue, because Matt's looking at him. _Matt's singing to him_.

Of course. This is Matt's way of communicating. And he would pick this song, wouldn't he? Dave wrote some of these lines, and now they're being directed at him. At Dave, who knew exactly what they meant.

He turns away from Matt, focuses on the piano and making his shaking hands pick out the right keys. But he sings along, when he can remember the words. That much, he can do.

\---

Dave lounges on the couch in their new hotel room a few hours after the show, alone while the others are out carousing, staring not at the flickering TV screen but somewhere past it. Somehow _This Hour Has 22 Minutes_ reruns just can't compete with what's on his mind.

What's on his mind is Matt, mostly. And hearing Matt sing that song to him. Dave is a romantic at heart—it's the way he'd want someone to tell him. And when he heard Matt sing to him, something inside him changed. Warmed. And the lyrics, some of which had been rhymes he'd wrangled out of the top of his head, suddenly started making sense to him in a new way. He could change. For someone who wanted to love him the way that song was all about, he could change.

But why now? Why _Matt_?

It's the way Matt operates, he thinks bitterly. Always picking the worst possible moment. Maybe he doesn't do it on purpose, and Dave certainly hopes he didn't deliberately choose a time when Dave was at his most vulnerable. Really it's Holly who's to blame, with her impossible optimism and her insistence that everything would be better if we all held hands and talked about our feelings. There are too many things Dave is feeling that he doesn't even know how to explain to himself, let alone talk about with anyone else. 

Some of them are about Matt, for sure. The type of friendship he has with Matt—it's closer than he's ever been to anyone else. Maybe that's just because Matt has latched on to him as an emotional outlet, but no—that's not what it is. Matt trusts him. It's weird. Dave is someone people trust, sure, but as their designated driver. He's the guy that if you ask him to meet you at 7 pm he'll be there at 6:58. He's not the guy that people tell their feelings and their fears to. Probably people assume that because Dave isn't all that touchy-feely, he's probably not actually capable of feeling things on a deeper level. They think he's…well, they think he's boring.

Not Matt. When he's with Matt, and the more he thinks about it the more obvious it should have been that something was going on there, Matt really wants to know his opinions on things. Really wants to hear about him. Really gives a shit about him—even when Matt gets into one of his irrational funks and fucks things up between them and acts like a dickhead, Dave knows it's not because Matt wants to hurt him, and now he thinks maybe it's because Matt doesn't know how to show him that he loves him.

And Dave, maybe, when he thinks about how much time they spend together, and how when they're in the midst of their creative flow they're like two minds thinking as one (maybe it wasn't that he pulled those lyrics off the top of his head, maybe it was just that the thoughts were already there waiting for him), and how Matt makes him laugh and makes him frustrated like no one else does because god damn it, he cares so much, maybe, maybe he could love Matt too…

…or maybe not. Maybe this is just his reaction to figuring himself out. He doesn't want to end up sleeping with every guy he knows, and he has no interest in perpetuating the stereotype that the gay male lifestyle includes hopping in bed with everything that vaguely looks like it might have a dick. On the _other_ hand—but he's up to three hands now isn't he—Matt's worst possible moment really was, for all of the reasons that it was absolutely the wrong time, also probably the perfect time if he wanted to have any remote chance of getting Dave to sleep with him.

And yeah. The truth is, when Dave thinks about it, if Dave were going to date, or even hook up with, any guy, Matt would probably be near the top of the list. Well, Vin Diesel would probably be number one, but this is supposed to be strictly reality-based. 

"God damn it." Dave throws the remote at the wall. Vin fucking Diesel? Jesus, he really is gay. Really, really fucking gay.

\---

Holly and Dave make tea the next morning. Well, Holly is really doing all the making, but Dave has adopted his mom's habit of being extremely specific about steeping time and tea-to-water ratio, so he's making helpful comments as appropriate. 

"This isn't exactly helping your image," says Holly as Dave fishes out teabags, sniffing the steam rising from the mugs.

"What image? I don't have an image." Dave lowers the teabags into Holly's trash can as Holly moves over a can of wildflowers to make room for some mugs. "Or should I retort that using a metal tea kettle is ruining your flower child image?"

"Flower children don't take no shit from no one," Holly chides with a grin, shaking a finger and smoothing her skirt down. Glancing around, she pulls a wildflower from a _different_ can and tucks it behind Dave's ear. Dave pulls it out, rolling his eyes.

"I'm still the same person, you know." 

"I'm not trying to treat you different! Maybe I'd have put flowers in your hair even if you traveled with posters of Carmen Electra. Maybe—"

"What the _hell_ is this about?" Rich butts in. Dave hadn't seen him come into the kitchen. There's an anger smoldering underneath his words that takes Dave aback, makes him regret a little bit his earlier being pleased that Rich was starting to hold his own. "What happened to Dave that he might potentially not be the same person after?" He looks straight at Dave then, his eyes accusing. "Or is this another one of those things that I just couldn't possibly understand because I haven't been in the band for four years?"

"Can I take a rain check out on that question?" Dave says and interests himself thoroughly in pouring the tea into the mugs. Tea. Yeah, tea is great! 

Rich isn't taking the cue. "Is this about Matt?" he asks, his voice lower. And Dave, of course, despite priding himself on his self-control, turns around so fast he fears whiplash. Holly seems to have done the same, though, which takes the sting out of it a little.

"About Matt what?" she asks, hands on her hips. "Could you try narrowing it down a little? There's a lot of Matt stuff for stuff to be about."

"Maybe I should just talk to Dave alone for a minute," says Rich. Well, there goes Dave's only lifeline. Holly is nodding.

"Don't you two kill each other in my kitchen," she says, before ducking out. "Now I'll go get some fresh air. It's a beautiful day out!" she calls, singsong, from the doorway. And there she goes again. The bitch.

"Look," says Rich. "I know there's a lot I haven't figured out yet, or maybe I'm too thick to. But you just need to stop being so protective of Matt."

Dave drops the mug he's holding. Luckily it was only about two inches from the stovetop, so instead of breaking, it just makes a clatter that rings through the whole trailer.

"I," he starts, and that's about all he can manage.

"Matt's not a baby, and he's not your wife. He likes girls. He likes Holly! Okay? Yes, I think it's probably pretty idiotic of him to go around flaunting the fact that he's getting some ass—"

"Holly's not 'some ass'." Dave has a hair-trigger feminist reflex—another inheritance from his mother, and now, he's thinking, another strike against him appearing anything but flaming. Maybe the fact that he's in sweats will save him, but he's probably a lost cause.

"Whatever he's getting. I don't care. My _point_ is back when I first met you guys, I thought you two had it all squared away and were probably dating or at least sleeping together." What the fuck? is all Dave can think. "But now it's pretty obvious you're not, and I know how you feel about Matt—" Hilarious, because Dave doesn't know how he _himself_ feels about Matt. "—but you just need to step back. Let him be with Holly. They're like little kids. How the hell can you get in the way of that?"

"Rich." Dave waves his hands around. "Rich, please shut up for one second. You keep saying wronger and wronger things, and I'm losing track." He sighs. "Matt and Holly aren't a couple, and neither are Matt and I." Rich blinks, shaking his head.

"If Matt and Holly aren't a couple, what _is_ a couple?" A fair question. Apparently it has something to do with cats.

"Matt and Holly are fuckbuddies. That's all. They have been since they met."

"And _you_ and Matt?" Rich asks. Dave closes his eyes, preparing himself to explain. "Look, it's not like you have to hide anything from me. I'm not any kind of bigot. I didn't know if it was me you were hiding stuff from or everyone else."

"Is this some sort of dramatic irony bullshit where everyone knows what the hell's going on except for the goddamn main character?" Dave says, bracing himself with his hands against the stove. "I'm not even—I mean, okay. Matt. Matt just _confuses_ me. I could say more, but it's Matt's business."

"Have you slept with him? Can you at least tell me that much?"

"No, I haven't _slept_ with him! Where are you even _getting_ this?"

"Small signals."

"Men aren't supposed to notice small signals." Dave realizes a split second later this is probably more of an insult than it was meant to be. Also, so much for his feminist streak.

"Okay, so I live with women. Sue me." Rich tosses his hands up in the air. "I date them, too, as it happens. And Kate sees what I see too."

" _Kate_ 's in on this?" Gaping, Dave shakes his head. "I think I need to sit down." So he does, flopping onto the rough, sagging couch. 

"Kate just said you two were sweet. Nothing graphic. Honestly I don't know why you're freaking out so much."

"Rich."

"Dave." Rich does an obnoxious little head movement, and Dave resists the urge to throttle him.

"Matt and I aren't a couple. In fact, we weren't anything until yesterday—yes, you heard me right, yesterday—Matt comes up to me and tells me he has a crush on me." He instantly regrets it, but the words are out and he'll have to grin and bear it.

"And?"

"And I told him we'd figure things out." This is, of course, a blatant lie, but Dave has honestly had it with this whole conversation. "Because my personal life is very confusing right now."

"You're in a band," says Rich, sounding suddenly pained as he moves toward the door. "You don't have a personal life anymore."

\---

"You just can't keep your big mouth shut, can you?" Matt asks, walking behind Dave and breathing hot on the back of his neck. It makes Dave's skin prickle in the sort of way that he can't decide whether he likes or not. "Holly pulled me in to listen to your conversation. I really appreciate it, Dave, just so you know."

"So I'm not allowed to talk to Rich about things I have questions about?" Arguing with Matt gives Dave a sickly feeling. It's like hitting a puppy after it bites you because it doesn't know better. 

"Not if they involve my _private_ business. Honestly, Dave, I thought you knew better." Matt stops walking for a moment and Dave suddenly gets afraid Matt's going to hit him. But he doesn't, he just exhales and resumes his pacing. "Dave, you know, and you should know because I have a feeling you're in the same position; I didn't choose to feel the way I feel about you. You're just here in my life and you're handsome and brilliant and _generally_ a pretty decent person."

"I can't be decent when I'm this confused."

"Fuck you." Matt flings the words casually, but they still hit Dave hard for some reason. "You think _you're_ confused?"

"Yes. I _am_ confused. I've been trying my best to act normal when my life has just made about the biggest one-eighty I can remember." 

Now Matt stops pacing and grabs Dave by the shirt collar, staring him straight in the eyes. He doesn't speak, at first only stares. Matt's eyes burn holes in Dave's skin, and Dave is somehow reminded of how damn attractive Matt is. An angry Matt is not something to be trifled with, but he's just—he's sexy. Dave gives up: he admits it now. Matt's body is, what's the word, it _radiates_ with whatever he's feeling. And it's appealing as all hell, the way he's such a physical person.

Which is pretty well exemplified by the fact that Matt is still twisting Dave's shirt collar in his hand.

"That's fun, isn't it?" Matt says. "When your whole life is a confusing mess, and nothing is familiar? Try living it _every damn day_." He finally lets go. "There are a lot of things I want to say and do and do to _you_ right now, but I am going to have sex instead. You should leave now."

So yes, that is all Matt has to say, leaving Dave smoothing out his shirt and frowning as he walks out of the room and into the rain. Holly rolls her eyes at him as he passes, and he can't tell whether she's amused or angry or making some sort of secret signal to tell him everything's okay.

He stands in the rain for a while—quite poetically, he thinks—while Matt and Holly fuck in the little room and life goes on without him. 

\---

It storms.

The MGB is supposed to pack up and leave, but the general consensus is "In this weather? Like _hell_ I'm driving," so Ian calls in to their next venue and lets them know they may have to cut their sound check short for tomorrow's concert. 

Dave lies on his bed and phones his sister. He gets the machine.

"Hi, this is Sara. Please leave your name and number, and if this is James, it had better be about when you're going to give me back my videos. Those weren't exactly cheap, and you know it. 'Kay, bye!"

"This is Dave. Call me back when you've got some time. I need to talk to you about some stuff." The words sound hollow in his ears, or maybe that's just the echo inside the receiver. "I'm at a hotel till tomorrow, the number's—"

"Dave?" Sara intercepts his message. She sounds groggy. "Fuck, what time is it?"

"It's only eight. What are you doing asleep?"

"I wasn't sleeping, doofus. I was meditating."

"Same thing."

"Is not. But what did you want to talk about, Dave? Dave who never calls me while he's on tour unless he's lost a limb or been abducted by aliens? Which one is it?" 

Twirling the cord around his finger, Dave stares up at the ceiling. The best way to do it is just take a deep breath and let it all go, right? It seems to have worked well enough before. Well, when you take 'well' very loosely.

"We're in Calgary with Holly McNarland and her band," he starts. Sara gasps audibly.

"Holly McNarland, really? I love her! Get me an autograph, Dave, will you?"

"If she'll talk to me."

"Oh God, is she one of those awful singers who think they're divas and don't talk to anyone who doesn't kiss their feet? Say it isn't so, Dave. I'll be heartbroken, you know that."

"No, no, not Holly. We have room for only one diva here and Matt's not giving up the position." He laughs bitterly, realizing Matt would usually find that hilarious. "Holly is the nicest and most approachable person around. She's just—well, they're both mad at me, and Rich too."

"Okay." There are shuffling sounds on Sara's side, and Dave figures she's sitting down (sitting up?) to prepare herself for a long talk. "What's going on?"

"Sara." He takes a deep breath. "I think—well, I'm pretty sure, but I've only really known lately, and I guess—"

"Come _out_ with it already. I'm sure my world won't be too shattered."

"I'm gay."

"That's all?"

"That's not very supportive." Dave's heart is starting to slow down now.

"I love you, Dave, and I'm proud of you. There, is that better?"

"Much." It isn't necessarily what he was expecting, but that's not a bad thing. 

"Is there someone in particular?" Sara asks, and then she laughs. "Damn, it's Matt, isn't it? You're always talking about him when you call me. On the _rare occasion_ that you call me." There goes Dave's hope of retaining a normal heart rate.

"You know, Rich thought Matt and I had a thing, too. We don't! It's Matt who wants to sleep with me. Oh, and the fact that I told Rich that is the reason why Matt wants to kill me. And Holly wants to kill me because Matt wants to kill me and Holly and Matt are friends with benefits and—"

"And you even _sound_ like him. Aww, young love. Or are you too old for young love now?"

"Sara!"

"Sorry. Little sister. Annoying's in the job description." More shuffling on the other end of the phone. "Dave, I'm not excusing what Matt's doing or anything, but I think if I were in his place, I'd be pretty emotionally unstable too. So just—don't think he hates you, or anything. He's probably just working everything out in his head, and he'll come back to you on his knees telling you how sorry he is." She giggles. "And possibly doing other things. While on his knees."

"Pervert."

"I'm _your_ sister. Any and all corruption of my brain should be blamed on _you_." Dave hears the smirk in her voice. "Also, you can't tell me your thoughts weren't wandering in similar directions."

"Why does everyone want me to get together with Matt? Maybe sometimes in real life, everything isn't as perfect as it could be. Maybe I don't know if I'll ever want to be anything more than Matt's good friend. Maybe—"

"Maybe you can at least _try_."

"I am so stressed right now, Sara. I don't know what to do." Dave wipes the sweat off his forehead. He knows exactly what he _wants_ to do—he wants to go apologize to Matt and have a perfect ending with a kiss and non-awkward sex that makes complete sense and doesn't need explaining or require mistakes to get right. Yes. He wants to try all the gay stuff possible with Matt. Matt is attractive and would be agreeable. He wants to say fuck the consequences, but he doesn't. He never does.

"I'm telling you want to do, David Genn."

"You're not my mother."

"No, but in this situation Mom would probably freak out and kick you out of the house until she could get all her thoughts in order."

"And then she would remember I didn't live in 'the house'."

"And then she'd bake you a pie."

"Yes, and it would be a really good pie, too. Probably blueberry. Can I go home now?"

"Stop whining or I'll hang up on you."

"Whine, whine, whine. I've ranted at you long enough anyway. Love you, Sara."

"Love you, Dave. Now stop being a big pansy and go fix everything. Save the world for me, Davy."

"Don't call me Davy."

"Bye now." Sara hangs up. Dave stares at the ceiling a while longer.

\---

"One Mississippi, Two Mississ— _shit_ ," Dave mutters, when a clap of thunder fills the room and makes him clamp his hands over his ears. 

"That's annoying," says Matt.

Says Matt?

"Aren't you getting laid in another room somewhere else that's distinctly not here?" Dave says, more relieved than anything else. When he turns around, he sees a dripping wet and grinning Matthew Good who's twiddling a lock of his hair around his index finger. "Why are you gorgeous?" 

Matt snorts. "I could ask you the same thing."

"Are we going to talk about it?" 

Laughing, Matt falls down onto the bed and lies next to Dave, making Dave yelp and shiver when cold wet fabric presses against his skin. It's that laugh Matt always gets when he's just done some major soul-searching—frightening and somewhat panicked and delirious. 

"What's there to talk about?" 

"Matt, your hand is on my knee."

"Yes." Matt laughs, high-pitched, almost a giggle. "It would be, wouldn't it?"

"Please tell me you're all right. I would really like to know that you're all right." Dave knows he's not going to get a satisfying answer to his questions, no matter how he phrases them. But on the other hand—maybe the best thing about Matt is the question. He's a big question mark in Sharpie marker on the script of the universe. And God if that isn't the worst metaphor Dave's ever come up with. Metaphor. Simile? Metaphor. "No, actually, new question." Dave is grinning too, for the record. "Metaphor. Is it metaphor when you say something _is_ something else or something is _like_ something else?"

"Is. Is like is a simile." Matt rolls over and looks Dave straight in the eye. "I'm getting the bed wet. Am I getting the bed wet?"

"Metaphor. Am I like getting the bed wet?"

"Stop _talking_ ," Matt says. He clamps Dave's head between his hands and pulls him close and kisses him on the lips. "Dave, I'm sorry. Dave, let's work this out. Dave, let's lock ourselves up in here and talk for hours and fuck ourselves blind. Dave. Dave. Dave."

"Are you crying, Matt?"

"Noooo, not _crying_." Matt puts his head on Dave's chest and keeps laughing.

\---

What feels like five minutes later, he's still laughing, and maybe weeping. That could be the rainwater though. Those sorts of things make it incredibly hard to tell, especially when it counts.

"I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this level of male bonding," Dave jokes, trying to change the status quo _somehow_. Any way you want it. 

"Dave Genn."

"That's me."

"I need to rephrase." Matt coughs. Okay, he was just laughing. That's safer. "From, you know. Earlier. Yesterday. Whatever."

"Rephrase what?" Matt is squirming now, shifting so he's not in a fetal position against Dave any longer but instead lying on his back, looking to the side at Dave. He's not sure why, but Dave decides it's important at this point to touch Matt's hair, which he does, separating bunches of hair with his fingers.

"I love you," Matt says then.

"Um."

"I have been in love with you practically since we met. I know, this is ridiculous. And I never say that word. It's like, it's like a taboo. I don't do that. I don't love people. But I love you, Dave Genn, and it is so damn good. And now I don't care anymore what you do with that information, or what you do with me. I don't _care_ , I don't give a fuck, I love you and Dave if you're gay or if you're straight or if you can only get off in the presence of small woodland creatures, I will follow you till the ends of the earth or what the hell ever the phrase is. If you're okay with that, I mean. But the point is I love you. So there. I said it. Okay. I just did that. Okay. Okay." Matt exhales, still grinning like a maniac. Dave is wondering why his mother never warned him about skinny myopic chain-smoking singer/songwriters, because this is the sort of person your mother is supposed to warn you about.

No, scratch that. The main thing Dave is wondering is more like this: Why do I feel this intense desire to shove my hands down his pants or kiss him or I don't _know_ what or—.

He clears his throat.

"I said it," Matt says again; Dave supposes this is in case he didn't hear the first four hundred or so times. "The thing I was going to say to you. I said it." 

"Tell me something, Matt Good: did Holly tell you to tell me that while you were screwing her?"

"We didn't screw. We drank tea and she read a book while I stared out the window. I can't have sex with Holly when I'm mad at you." Dave shakes his head.

"You're not making any sense, Matt." 

"Oh, trust me, there isn't a day when I don't wish I came with an instruction manual." Matt shifts again, and now he's leaning back into Dave, pressing the palms of his hands against Dave's chest. Dave presses back, inching his hips forward until they make contact with Matt's, and Dave realizes he's been holding his breath.

"Matt, you're freezing."

"Standing in the middle of a storm for forty-five minutes will do that to you." 

"God Matt, you did that?" And then, lowering his voice, Dave adds, "You did that because of me?" 

"I might have."

Dave sighs and puts his hands on Matt's shoulders. It's probably not enough to convince Matt he's being objective here, because the fact that he's hard against Matt's thigh is proof that objectivity is light years away. But it'll have to do. 

"Matt, I'm still figuring myself out. That’s one. Two, I don't even know whether I'm completely gay or just going through a weird phase—a weird patch—and I'm hardly ready to say whether I return your feelings. Three, provided this is me doing that returning thing, there's a lot I'll have to do before this can even approach an actual, regular relationship. Four, I've never had sex with a man before."

"Please, get to the point."

"I might break your heart."

"Okay," Matt says, and shrugs.

"That's it? Just 'okay'?"

"It's happened before. So, okay."

"Well, then, Matt—I won't say anything permanent but right now, at whatever ridiculous o'clock it is, I want to take off your clothes and kiss you and jerk you off till you're sore and I want to fuck you, Matt Good."

Now it is Matt's turn to say "Um."

Dave is becoming increasingly aware that Matt is squirmy and soaking and cold and straddling him. Yes, straddling him; Matt is wrapping his legs around Dave's and he has an erection. It's really strange to think of Matt as the sort of person who has erections; he _fucks_ , of course, but somehow Dave doesn't really start thinking of his best friend as getting _aroused_ until, well, until he's the one doing it, and how weird is that? 

"Matt, you're—"

"If you're going to point out that I'm getting hard, you're forgetting that I, too, can be perceptive when I want to."

"No, I was going to say you're freezing. Let's get those clothes off you." Matt gives Dave a silly smile.

"Oh, okay. I should probably, uh, get off you then." Matt scrambles up into the center of the bed, sitting on his legs and looking expectantly at Dave like he's waiting for instruction.

"Matt, you don't have to pretend like you don't know what you're doing. I don't get off to that. Just be Matt—be Matt who's done this before and can sort of show me around and be Matt who loves me and be Matt who keeps getting more interesting to me every day."

"Interesting, huh? Do you mean that sexually?"

"I might. I am extremely attracted to you right now." Matt shifts, pulling his legs to the side, so his sitting position is lopsided and awkward. Dave sits up too and starts to peel Matt's shirt off his chest. It's hitting him that yes, he's undressing _Matt_ , but on the other hand, _he's undressing Matt_ and he _wants_ this. Needs it.

"That's good," Matt says, making conversation. "You're obviously attracted to _something_ here, and I was hoping it wasn't, say, the bedside table, or the lamp, or the wallpaper."

"Well, as the gay man in authority, I have to say that if you _are_ attracted to that wallpaper in all its coffee-stained, hideous glory, I'll turn you out." The rain-soaked shirt is being very stubborn, but it has finally come up over Matt's chest, exposing his nipples—and oh God, Dave is realizing the gravity of this situation; not only does Matt have erections, he has _nipples_ —but in a way that looks like it might not be entirely pleasant. It's left red marks in places. "This isn't hurting you, is it?"

"It might be," Matt mumbles.

"I'm sorry, I'll be more—"

"Ahem," Matt interrupts, clearing his throat, "I said it might be, but I didn't say you should, you know, stop. Or anything."

"You have some serious baggage, don't you, Matt," Dave says, shaking his head with a small laugh. While he pulls Matt's shirt over his head, Matt frowns. Annoying, because Dave wanted to get to touching and licking and biting all of that chest that was under Matt's shirt right away, but now it's looking like he'll have to wait.

"You're not being fair. Everyone has baggage. I'm sorry if mine is heavier than others', or if it has stuff in it you're not allowed to take on planes, like firearms or radioactive materials, or…" Matt's hands are shaking. He puts one of them on Dave's knee—again! and this means Matt already has parts of Dave he likes and this means he's thought about this before and how goddamn hot is that. "I—if you want to do anything more than take my shirt off and gape at me, you'll have to accept that there's—"

"Shh, shh." On a whim, Dave actually leans forward and touches Matt's lips with his finger. "I like your baggage. I used to always avoid baggage with, you know, with girls. You're different. I like different." He takes his finger off Matt's lips and then plucks off Matt's glasses. Matt grabs him by the neck and kisses him hard, kisses him again and again and bites his neck and runs his tongue down it, pulling Dave's shirt aside so he can bite Dave's shoulder.

"I thought _I_ was undressing _you_ ," Dave gasps, his heart pounding and his dick getting harder between his legs. "Matt."

Matt doesn't reply, because he's pulling Dave's shirt off and then unbuttoning his jeans. Dave helps him get them off and leaves pants and socks and boxers on the edge of the bed. Both of their hands reach for the radio and Dave turns it on first. REM is fading into 54-40's "Ocean Pearl"—"Turn it up, I don't mind this song," says Matt—and they tumble back onto the bed, kissing and pulling down Matt's jeans off his hips and down his legs and over his feet. 

Next thing, he and Matt are both naked and hard, their erections rubbing against each other whenever they make the slightest movement, and his hands are sliding down Matt's back. How could he go back to anything else, ever, after this?

"Do you want to have, you know, actual sex? Or just a handjob? Blowjob? I can do anything you want. Anything at all. I'm versatile. Flexible."

Unable to let the double entendre slide, Dave interrupts, "Flexible, huh?"

"Mm, very." Matt presses his lips to the side of Dave's chin. 

"I want to be able to say let's fuck. But I don't think I can, not yet."

"I know, it's fine." Matt's hand slides between them and wraps around Dave's cock. He can get used to this. When Matt runs his thumb over Dave's head, Matt pauses and looks up at Dave meaningfully. A gesture with his eyebrows confirms what Dave thinks he's asking, and Dave swallows. 

"This is the first time I've ever done this." He considers the possibilities, and decides that one, he wants to do it and two, it can't kill him. So he lays the palm of his hand against Matt's erection, and then when the shock wears off, which is surprisingly quickly, he gets his whole hand around it and grins. Matt grins back and starts moving his own hand.

" _And I got an ocean pearl_ ," say 54-40, and Dave's not going to say he loves Matt or anything else just yet, but somehow coming in Matt's hand is—it's one thing in all this crazy mess that makes sense.

\---

So they wake up and, with few words, clean up, and they leave Calgary. 

That handjob in the hotel isn't the last one. Every time they stop at a rest stop, after wordlessly staring at each other Dave and Matt will duck into an empty corner of a bathroom and challenge each other to see who can be quietest. Among other things, Dave has learned that Matt always tastes like sweat and cigarettes, that Matt has a tendency toward the (sometimes creatively) profane during orgasm, and that Matt, no matter how he appears to take them, is a sucker for compliments.

Oh yeah, and he's good at sucking cock too. Dave tries this himself in Edmonton, his back scrunched against a stall door and his hands at Matt's ankles. 

" _I keep wanting to talk to you_ ," he mouths, and Matt mouths back, " _I know_ "—things about Matt to remember number four thousand and one: Matt can read lips—but it's a moot point, and Dave just lowers his mouth over Matt's cock and runs his tongue along the veins on the bottom and sucks his head and _oh_ , he can get used to this. When Matt comes, biting off a " _fuck_ " with a shuddering gasp, Dave feels his cock twitch and then he's coming too, half-bent knees collapsing onto the floor and licking Matt's come from his lips.

"Yeah," he says to Rich when they get back on the van, "I'm gay. I'm really, really gay."

\---

"Let's go to a restaurant," says Matt a few weeks later, and the two of them are alone at the time so it's pretty obviously a 'let's you and me go to a restaurant' kind of thing. "This is Montreal. We'll blend in with the local color."

"More so if I actually spoke French." 

"I'll give you that." Matt tosses the t-shirt he's wearing onto his bed and starts rummaging through his back for another. "But seriously," he says, pulling out a much less wrinkled shirt, "Let's go out. Let's go ahead and tell this whole thing to the world."

"What whole thing?" But of course Dave knows what whole thing. He knows all too well, and he knew this would happen. 

"Us. Our thing." Irate, Matt tosses his new shirt onto the bed and goes in for a third. "You can't say our relationship is only about fucking when last night we talked for two hours about writing songs. And when we don't even fucking _fuck_. Not that I have a problem with that."

"Look, Matt." 

"I know what you're going to say. And I know all too well it's completely right. I'm not going to walk out of this room and give you the silent treatment because you're not ready for something I want." Matt shifts back and forth on his feet. Well, this is good. This is Matt being rational, which is something Dave would love to see more of. Not to mention the part where he always looks great when he's deep in thought. "It's just that I do want it. And I can't stop myself from wanting it."

"What do you want more, though? It or me?" Dave immediately regrets asking it, and quickly continues before Matt can get another word in. "I mean, that's not what I mean. All I know is that I'm still figuring myself out, and until that happens, you'll have to put up with me being confused and indecisive and still kind of freaking out about everything. So I just don't know if it's time to make a big public announcement just yet."

"So basically what you're saying is, until you get everything squared away, I'm going to have to deal with being in a relationship with a shorter version of myself?"

Dave starts a little at this. "Well, when you put it that way…"

Matt smiles and shakes his head. 

"Dave, I'm going to be annoying as all fuck for the next few months, but if you can put up with _that_ , then I can put up with whatever you just asked me to put up with. I could even put up with you deciding I wasn't your thing—no, that's a lie, I would probably have to be hospitalized." Dave knows this is not an idle threat, if a bit of a far cry from his previous statement that it's okay if Dave breaks his heart. "But I'd get better, eventually, so I also won't guilt trip you any more than I already have."

"Thanks," Dave mumbles, kind of awed. "Let's kiss. I think this is the part where we kiss."

"Mhmm." Matt leans forward and their lips press together. Matt's glasses kind of get in the way, and Dave is still, even though it's been over a week, getting used to this whole thing, and—God this is awkward—Matt's hard, his erection pressing into Dave's leg. So it's not like this is easy basically. But Dave isn't about to ask for it any other way, so it'll do.

\---

Dave is shaving in the mirror when Ian walks in, wearing only a towel and frantically searching the shower area.

"What are you looking for?"

"Mouthwash," Ian mutters, finally finding what he's looking for under the sink. "I got shampoo in my mouth in the shower."

"I hope that's not mine," says Dave, since lately he's had his mouth in more interesting places than he ever has before. 

"Me too." Ian glances around. "You and Matt, you're—what are you? You keep disappearing off into your own world more and more every day. I don't _mind_ it, I just wanna understand."

"We…I wouldn't want to go into too much detail."

"Oh. Well." Silence fills the room, except for the sound of Dave's electric razor. "Well, I guess you and him living in your own little world isn't really all that different from before, is it, except now there's more kissing."

"Pretty much."

But here's the thing: maybe what Ian said is actually true. Maybe things really are just the same as they always were. Maybe the only difference is that recently, Dave's been getting better at seeing things for the way they really are. 

And as difficult and complicated as it makes things at times, in the end maybe that's not such a bad prospect. He's been thinking about it ever since he woke up this morning and yeah, he could live with that.


End file.
